...And a Reprieve

After I figured out that my Amazon links were messed up, and knowing the scope of the problem was pretty wide, I sent off an email to the Tech Editor, asking if he'd help me fix the links, figuring that four hands would get the links repaired in half the time. I was wrong.

With his mighty wizardry and knowledge of how computer shit works, he did some kind of magic "find and replace" with the Press guts, and then sent me a reply email the following morning that said that all 800-and-some links were fixed.

I cannot convey what a sense of relief I felt, except that I was so energized by the prospect of not developing terminal eyestrain that I spent the afternoon writing. Thank you, Tech Editor Josh. You made my week.

On a side note, Josh did not tell me how he fixed it. He never tells me how he fixes things in the Press guts. Maybe it's a power trip -- or maybe he just knows that I don't know what I'm doing really, and that in my hands a little bit of knowledge could be a very dangerous thing. If I were him, I wouldn't want someone to risk messing up 13 years of website either.

Ghost in the Machine

So this morning, I was standing at my work table in the studio, looking at the funnies and the BBC and the weather, using my laptop. On the right end of the table, my old laptop sat, closed up, unplugged, turned off.

Bernie's been telling me for over a year now that I have to get over my sentimentality and ditch the old laptop; an IMPORTANT WINDOWS UPDATE destroyed its optical drive (not lying, it really did, my computer and many many other people's computers) and made it a bit unstable at times. Plus the power cord connection is a bit loose and the battery no longer holds a charge.

But I have a lot of photos still on it, and the keyboard action is so comfortable and classy ... also, it runs with Vista OS and that means my old scanner still works with it, which my newer Windows 7 machines will not allow.

Anyway, this morning, as I was looking at the weather, I heard an odd yet familiar sound. At the end of the table, untouched by me or anything else, the old laptop turned itself on. I'm not shitting you, it did. Even with a dead battery, it turned itself on.

I opened it, and saw the background of my desktop, and then with a barely audible little yip, the screen went dead. Of course it did. The battery has no juice.

I plugged its power cord into the side, pressed the "Power" button, and fired it up. I used it all morning without problem, and now the machine display says that I have a fully charged battery.

Did my machine, upon whom I have written so many words, manipulated so many images, miss me that much? Indeed, I am writing this on it right now.

Say "Hello," Machine.